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Illicit: North Korea's Evolving Operations to Earn Hard Currency
113 pages, ebook
Published April 15, 2014
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August 26, 2023
Sheena Chestnut Greitens provides an account of the role of illicit activities by North Korean regime, which mostly involve drug production, counterfeiting of foreign currency and consumer goods, and trafficking of human resources and wildlife.
The author distinguishes three phases of the North Korean involvement in these activities: first starting from mid-1970s, second from the 1990s and third from 2005 (up to 2014, the year of publication). The focus of the book is to provide the history of the initial two phases and their evolution into the third one.
By the author, the key characteristics of this third phase is the decreased regime's monopoly is criminal activities, shift from state-sponsored to state-tolerated private industry (black markets), and the general absence of evidence of regime involvement. It is noted that illicit activities are only one of eight, mostly licit pillars of state income: Kaesong Industrial Complex (whose operations were suspended in February 2016), trade with China, tourism, export of labor, remittances from Korean residents living abroad, cell phones (both hardware and services) and arms sales.
It's pity that the author's research is cut in 2014, the year when Sony Pictures Entertainment was sophistically hacked by North Korean hackers. Since that moment, it is extensively reported that their operations in the cyber space have intensified and naturally emerged into a new type of illicit activity: cybercrime. It would be interesting to read the current state of the country's illicit activities (as of 2023).
The author distinguishes three phases of the North Korean involvement in these activities: first starting from mid-1970s, second from the 1990s and third from 2005 (up to 2014, the year of publication). The focus of the book is to provide the history of the initial two phases and their evolution into the third one.
By the author, the key characteristics of this third phase is the decreased regime's monopoly is criminal activities, shift from state-sponsored to state-tolerated private industry (black markets), and the general absence of evidence of regime involvement. It is noted that illicit activities are only one of eight, mostly licit pillars of state income: Kaesong Industrial Complex (whose operations were suspended in February 2016), trade with China, tourism, export of labor, remittances from Korean residents living abroad, cell phones (both hardware and services) and arms sales.
It's pity that the author's research is cut in 2014, the year when Sony Pictures Entertainment was sophistically hacked by North Korean hackers. Since that moment, it is extensively reported that their operations in the cyber space have intensified and naturally emerged into a new type of illicit activity: cybercrime. It would be interesting to read the current state of the country's illicit activities (as of 2023).
Displaying 1 of 1 review